Sunday, May 5, 2013

It's taken me 3 weeks to write this. It's crazy. I used to be able to churn out five thousand words a day when I wanted to. Not anymore. Being a stay at home mom to a 10 month old without family nearby to help out makes it difficult to get much done that isn't directly baby-related.

I've got to say I've got an incredible kid. Little Man pulled a side table down on himself on Friday, April 5th, splitting his eyebrow open and requiring 8 stitches. He cried for about a minute when he initially hurt himself, and that was it, even as his face continued to bleed. It was a bad day for an accident. We'd just turned our family vehicle in to the body shop to get it fixed from a parking lot accident last month, and M was driving my car to work, which left me without a vehicle. Enter good neighbors. The neighbor on my right was home, fortunately. She has started back to work part time after having a baby in December and on Friday she was home. She gave me a ride to my doctor's office. My doc said Little Man needed stitches and since it was on his face he wanted a plastic surgeon to do it, so go to the Kaiser emergency room. So I called another neighbor to take me to the emergency room. I didn't want the neighbor with the baby to be stuck waiting for us for hours with an infant. I know how much work that is.

Meanwhile, I'm on the phone telling M what happened and that I've got it covered -- no need to come to the hospital and interrupt his last day at work before we go on vacation to Cabo San Lucas. He came anyway, even though he's as squeamish about bleeding as most men are. He came, and he was awesome. He helped keep Little Man occupied while we waited for the surgeon to become available, and while we discussed options for sedation. Eventually we settled on intravenous ketamine, which is a sort of hypnotic, that would make it possible for them to bundle the baby up and hold him still long enough to stitch the wound closed. Little Man cried again as the nurse put in his IV, but that was it. She got it in on the first try and he didn't fight her at all. M helped hold his kegs down and I spoke to him soothingly. The hospital staff said they wished all parents and children were so easy to treat -- that parents often get upset and their crying and anger makes it harder on the children and the staff.

It was difficult watching the ketamine take effect. The surgeon said they usually ask parents to leave because they don't handle seeing their kids that way very well. I can understand why. But I stayed and talked to Little Man as the drug took effect. He was fighting the initial onset -- the disorientation and the uncontrollable trembling -- so I spoke to him soothingly and he calmed down right away. Once he was swaddled and too far gone to notice me I left so I wouldn't be in the way. It appears that he's got my funky metabolism for drugs because he started to come up out of the dissociative state before they finished stitching him and a second dose was required. This meant that we had to wait around at the hospital for an hour and a half until he was back to the way he was when he came in: a smiling, alert baby.

We got the blessing of the doctor to go on vacation Saturday -- just keep him out of the pool for a few days and keep the sun off the wound to keep it from getting dark. Chances are good that by the time he's ready for kindergarten there won't even be a scar.

M usually teases me for starting the packing process early, since he usually throws stuff into a bag last minute, but this time we agreed that it was a good thing that the packing was all done except for the toiletries and gadgets. Little Man was pretty needy once we got home, so I wouldn't have had time to pack before we left the house at 10:30am on Saturday.

We've traveled with the baby often enough now that we pass through security screening at the airport with ease. These were his 7th and 8th flights and he survived them without a whimper, much to the relief of those who sat nearby. No one wants to sit near a bawling baby during a flight.

Cabo San Lucas is very different from Puerto Vallarta. PV is very lush and tropical. Cabo is like Arizona, but with a beach. It's a very sere, bare landscape. There are lots of dry creekbeds, some cacti and scraggly trees. And then there is the blue-blue sky and the turquoise blue water. It's lovely in its own way. We stayed at the Wyndham right on the marina. It's in the middle of everything, which is great, because when the Little Man would wake up at 6am we could get out and walk around so as not to wake his father and grandmother.

I got a decent massage for USD20.00. Ate the best coconut shrimp I've
ever had at a place called Alexander's which is right on the marina.
Had really good fish tacos at Squid Roe. Swam with Alex in the Skypool. And got suckered into doing a timeshare
presentation. Ugh. Got a great massage at the fancy spa in exchange
though. Mostly I relaxed and nibbled and read and played with Alex. It was lovely. His grandmother was great with him and even watched him so M and I could go out to dinner one night.

The flight back was Uneventful. Getting through customs in SFO is always a pain in the ass because they just don't have enough immigration and customs staff working there.

It was good to be home, but once again all three of us got sick. M had simple cold. I ended up with intestinal distress as well, for about a week -- I think it might have been the burger I had at the airport. The Little Man wasa little sneezy and had a light cough -- he also had some loose stools but nothing terribly messy. I'm just now getting caught up on the laundry and we've been home for 3 weeks.

There is no place like home. I really like coming home. The weather is beautiful, the patio area is really shaping up nicely (thank the gods for automatic sprinklers) and I like being in the house -- the beachy colors are very relaxing. I dug out the planting bed and put in fresh organic soil, then planted corn starts and carrot seeds. Harvested sugar snap peas and strawberries. And washed load after load of laundry. Some days I fantasize about having a maid. And a nanny. But I still love my life :)